The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-01-29
THE MEN WHO SPECULATE.
BrOken-dOwn Brokers A Large
Number Weak to Begin With.

While one sees occasionally a person
who has made money in Wall Stree
and kept it, he more commonly sees the
oldest and strongest habitudes down
there either poor or diseased. The
brokers require to be perfectly sober to
keep their heads. and the customers as
well. yet the conditions of speculation
demand stimulation, and the widest
things are done when the head is drunk
You will find the stock exchange and all
other exchanges where speculation
RACES surrounded by drinking houses,
and large proportion of these break in
time because their proprietOrs and
clerks are drawn into the market.
A large majority of the men who
speculate are weak to begin with. Here
and there you find u hard Drained man
without much sensibility, started in
life amid rough associations, and to MIN
the stock exchange is rather mild and
becoming society. He has learned to be
either his losses or his gains, and such
q one extending his acquaintance may.
possibly cooperate in time with his
quotations according to his bets for it
Is all betting in every event. Politicians,
people of literary turns, actors, officers
of the regular army, advanc d clerks in
mercantile houses, keepers of saloons,
butchers, hotel men, are among the
sources of supply for the stock exchange.
Many of those have not much training
or education, and but little moral
courage; yet the atmosphere of Wall
Street is as genial as that of gambling
house when a stranger enters il. You
go into the old fashioned gambling
house, if any such exist IN our day, and
you find polite attention everywhere;
order and quiet are maintained. The
chief gambler is the essence of discretion
and composure. So in Wall Street you
can find the most agreeable exponents
of human nature, often useful men; the
best age for a Wall Street man seems to
be about 40. These brokers are not
often fools. They have often been mer-
chants, contractors, builders of railway
lines, and approach the speculative part
OF their work from the large and whole
some end. '-
He who goes to Wall Street had best
possess some experience of real life be-
forehand. When man is worn out
there and his money lost there is not
the least use for, him, even where good
charity is exercised, because the bust
ness of the street is to buy and sell
stocks for commissions, and to work
without any security of pay is a bore to
the broker and q bad example to his
customers, besides an invasion of his
book keeping and Generalization at
arge. In the ordinary pursuits of life
day comes every quarter or
twice year, but in Wall Street it comes
every day. 1t is a RUE of the street to
follow up margins closely and collect
hem promptly. The mere sucker who
goes down there with a few thousand
dollars has but little idea of the huge
brute strength he may have to encounter
n the very room where he keeps his
accounts. He would hardly 60 to a
private poker room where experts
played in order to hide his purse anG
MS hand; why then should he enter !
business Office where they gamble from
o'clock until 3, only six hours out of
the tWenty-four, consider that he is
in his communications? No
doubt there is considerable honor
the brokers, but good many of
5hese brokers are themselves operators,
and in many cases they have no other
than an ordinary newspaper
'eader or typographical traveller would
nave of the condition of cOrpOrations.-
Gath" iH Boston Globe.